


let us find that fire is also a source of renewal

by Tobi_Black



Series: Let Us 'verse [40]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Clone Rebellion, Ben (OC) - Freeform, Crechemaster Mace Windu, Gen, Post-Order 66, Tale (OC)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23110978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobi_Black/pseuds/Tobi_Black
Summary: Mace had not expected to gain a Padawan after the near-annihilation of the Jedi Order, but he had.He had expected having to think over every tradition the Jedi had once held and pick and choose which ones were still possible to follow, which ones were still safe to do, which ones had to be adjsuted, which ones should be discarded, and which should be forgotten entirely.He'd yet to think about how a Padawan could become a Knight.
Relationships: Depa Billaba & Mace Windu, Kanan Jarrus & Mace Windu, Mace Windu & Caleb Dume, Mace Windu & Padawan, Mace Windu & Younglings, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Mace Windu, Qui-Gon Jinn & Mace Windu
Series: Let Us 'verse [40]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1076118
Comments: 52
Kudos: 196





	1. Chapter 1

**10 BBY**

Just as it had snuck up on him how he’d gained another Padawan, how he’d become a Crèchemaster, it slowly dawned on him that if Order 66 had never happened, he would have been recommending Talé for the Trials soon.

It had been a passing thought one day some six years after he’d taken her on, as Ben had her help him smuggle a Force-Sensitive off Coruscant. As he’d felt confident that she could handle anything that might come up shy of an Inquisitor, or Force-forbid, Vader. In another time, he would have begun stepping back in his role in their missions, let her make decisions with only his consult and support.

He’d been distracted from perusing that thought further by the antics of his Wampa clan, and then by news from Gramps about some of the moves that Caleb had made before disappearing into the ether like so many others of the Jedi that had survived Order 66.

A year or so later, she’d been working with Ben when they had a run in with an Inquisitor, and even as he’d had Gramps ready a way for him to perform a rescue before she went the way of Master Luminara, trying to censor the curses tumbling freely from his mouth for the sake of the younglings he was teaching as he’d fretted and worried he would outlive two Padawans, she’d come back on her own. One arm in a sling to not agitate a saber-burn to her shoulder, but she’d come back under her own power, with Ben snarking at her about how he was going to hunt down some durasteel armor for her before she gave him grey hair.

A shatterpoint over her broken.

He called her a Senior Padawan then, and had been thinking of what teachings were left that he would need to impart on her while trying to process the fact that he’d known the Inquisitor she’d met, remembered him as a Shadow that had disappeared in the wake of Order 66, and what that might mean of the other Inquisitors.

Another year and the thoughts of lessons left untaught was changing to how a Padawan might become a Knight in these dark times, with the traditional way lost with the Temple she would have been raised in.

It had dawned on him then that soon he would cut her braids, that Caleb would have likely have been ready to be knighted himself, and he and Depa would have fretted together as all Masters did once their Padawans were grown, as the two would have likely partnered up for missions separate from them after the traditional six months of solo-ing.

He’d mourned fresh of Depa, of Caleb, for a little while, before Talé had joined him and they’d meditated together over her impending Knighting.

Two years he deliberated on which site to send her so that she could go through the Trials in pilgrimage; which one might still remain hidden, forgotten since they’d been closed with the Jedi’s declining numbers in the last few centuries.

Ultimately, he’d given her a list and allowed her to choose, to see which the Force led her to.

She’d meditated on it for several weeks before leaving.

~

It had taken her six months to return, and for a moment when he’d seen her, he’d been stricken by the sight of her tanned, her braids looped back like Depa’s instead of Padawan braids.

At how she was smiling as she’d told him all about landing on Jedha and having a close call with ‘troopers before a blind man had aided her, then led her to the remnants of the Order of the Whillis. They’d then guided her through her Trials before gifting her with one of the kyber pieces that they’d saved from their home when it was raided by the Empire and then destroyed. She’d stayed with them for months to learn anything they could teach her, while building a lightsaber of her own.

It was all very much like he remembered of Depa during her early days of Knighthood, and it had really hit home that he’d raised another Padawan (daughter) to Knighthood (adulthood).

Talé hadn’t come back alone either, with a loth-cat around her neck and having apparently picked up Ben before he was taken to a prison by the Empire somewhere along the way, and he’d stolen an Imperial droid that snarked and cussed as badly as Skywalker’s R2 once he’d somehow overrode its loyalty at some point in the last few months.

Mace almost put his head in his hands, because he was clearly _cursed_.

(Somewhere in the Force, Qui-Gon was laughing because he’d found the man’s second coming, a boy that was both Obi-Wan’s and Skywalker’s match in Trouble, with a cantankerous droid to rival Skywalker’s.)

He _knew_ it because he’d _finally_ remembered why the name _Ben_ , not for being literally the most common hume name in the galaxy, had left him with a foreboding feeling that haunted him all these years that Ben had gone out and always seemed to find some sort of trouble.

 _Ben_ was the name that Obi-Wan had taken that year he’d been on the run with the Duchess of Mandalore, the name he’d used whenever undercover without his Padawan, the name of the saabac player that had gotten that trouble-magnet of a man on the blacklist of Serenno’s nobles for twenty-plus years.

It was probably the name that Obi-Wan was going under wherever he was hiding, which was probably in someplace that was a taunt for the Empire that would be in the one place they’d never think to look.

He _really_ hoped Obi-Wan wasn’t strolling around on Naboo like he _wasn’t_ trolling Palpatine.

It would be just his luck to find out Obi-Wan was doing such a thing, considering his former Padawan and her partner in crime was a terrible cross between the Jinn-Kenobi and Kenobi-Skywalker pair.

He was actually a little afraid that they’d find a Tano to complete their team of trouble.

Then for a moment, it was like Depa was leaning over their shoulders, smiling when Talé abruptly laughed at his misery.

_< <They’re good for you, Master.>>_


	2. Chapter 2

**6 BBY**

Mace had just settled into a life without a Padawan again, feeling better than he had the last time about where he was in life with his Younglings even in the heart of the Empire, without the added stresses of becoming a Council member then a Grandmaster, when Talé had casually informed him a month after she left with Ben to take their cell of Windu’s Army – and Ben had been impervious to the look he’d given the boy for the name when he’d finally heard what they’d called their smuggling Force-Sensitives out of the Empire’s hands – across the galaxy, that she wanted to look for Caleb.

He’d told her plenty over the years of Depa, and of her Padawan, having been there for most of Gramps’ updates on what he’d found of the boy before he’d disappeared completely.

That he’d changed his name to Kanan Jarrus was something he’d – they’d – learned in the last few months after much searching.

He’d wanted to go searching himself many times, but he hadn’t been able to abandon his Younglings nor take them all with him. Nor had he thought that he could get off Coruscant without being found out, hidden as he was by the tens of levels and millions of beings between him and Palpatine, particularly as he was assumed dead and coming out risked everything that had been built around him on Coruscant.

Still, he had almost gone regardless, even if he’d been letting his emotions override his logic, because Caleb was his grand-Padawan and it had been Depa’s last request of him to take care of the boy.

He’d meditated many times on it, on his failure to do as she had asked, on how the boy must believe himself alone and abandoned, on how he desperately wished to let himself be put on the Galaxy’s Most Wanted just to let Caleb know wherever he was in the Empire, that he was out there, that he wasn’t alone. It had ultimately led him to biding his time, trusting that the Force would let him know when he needed to make that move even if it grated.

Mace had never thought to ask Talé to go in his place to Caleb.

He’d had no words for her, just an embrace as he passed everything he couldn’t say through their bond.

Then she’d left Coruscant, and sporadically he would get messages passed through Windu’s Army of tidbits she’d hear – of Kanan, of the Rebels, of Inquisitors, of Jedi – with even more sporadic visits when she passed close enough to Coruscant on her travels to stop by, that just got rarer as she chased Caleb’s trail into the Outer Rim.


	3. NOT A CHAPTER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At 100k+ words, and coming up on two years in May/June, in celebration of how expansive this ‘verse has become (40 posted, with an additional 5 partially finished or finished) – and because I have literally 40+ ideas for installments ready, with a minimum of eight different source materials that I need to read/watch and decide what is and is not still in effect, leaving me with an abundance of options that a little assistance narrowing down for the moment would be appreciated – you, my wonderful, fantastic readers can pick who and when, and/or what gets written in the near future.  
> Other suggestions of who/when are gladly accepted, if likely to not be posted in the near future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are roughly 30 of nearly/50 ideas floating around in a checklist/document.

Vaderkin – 5 BBY – Palpatine’s loyalty test

Jango – 18-5 BBY

Boba & Han – Han’s Bounty

Boba – the Jedi Hunts

Handmaidens – the rebellion on Naboo, Empire Era

Padme – Palpatine & Padme & Anakin

Padme – after 19 BBY

The Plo Koon search/Wolffepack chasing after any traces of Plo

Palpatine

Card Shark Luke – 5-3 BBY

Battle for Alderaan

#letRexpunchAnakin2k20 [Complete ;)]

Numa – 15-5 BBY

Maul

Hera – just before or after Asajj, Bly, and Quinlan show up on Lothal

Sabine – pre-Ghost crew

Lando – 10-5 BBY

Lando – post-Battle for Alderaan

Depa – 19-5 BBY

Ackbar - 19-5 BBY

Ahsoka & Obi reunion

Rogue One

Jyn

Chirrut

Jocastu Nu

Obi-Wan’s Rebellion

The Mandalorian

Kanan

Ponds

Galen Erso

Vader – Death Star’s flaw – 6 BBY

Gregor

Kix

Jesse

Echo

Asajj

Shaak Ti

Aayal & Bly - reunion - 4 BBY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of these are more fleshed out in said checklist/document, but- spoilers.


End file.
